SCHEDULING AND ROUTING OF VEHICLES FOR LARGE SCALE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS HAS BECOME AN INCREASINGLY SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM AREA BECAUSE OF INCREASED COST FOR FUEL,VEHICLE ACQUISITION, MAINTENANCE, AND LABOR.

SCHEDULING AND ROUTING OF VEHICLES FOR LARGE SCALE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS HAS BECOME AN INCREASINGLY SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM AREA BECAUSE OF INCREASED COST FOR FUEL,VEHICLE ACQUISITION, MAINTENANCE, AND LABOR. THE NEED FOR EFFICIENT VEHICLE SCHEDULING AND ROUTING EXISTS THROUGHOUT ALL SECTORS OF INDUSTRY, INSTITUTIONS, AND GOVERNMENT. AS A RESULT, EXTENSIVE RESEARCH HAS BEEN PERFORMED RELATED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOMATED ALGORITHMS FOR VEHICLE ROUTING. HOWEVER, CURRENT ALGORITHMS RELY ON COMPUTATIONALLYINTENSIVE INTEGER PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES AND DO NOT ADDRESS ALL OF THE DIFFICULT CONSTRAINTS CHARACTERISTIC OF REAL WORLD TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS. THE PROPOSED RESEARCH INVOLVES THE INVESTIGATION OF INNOVATIVE VEHICLE SCHEDULING AND ROUTING METHODS DEVELOPED BY THE PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR FOR SEALIFT TRANSPORTATION ANALYSIS BASED ON ITERATIVE APPLICATION OF HIGHLY EFFICIENT NETWORK FLOW ALGORITHMS. THESE METHODS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO INCREASE SPEED BY A FACTOR OF TEN WHILE INCORPORATING MANY OF THE ADDITIONAL REAL WORLD CONSTRAINTS NECESSARY FOR PRACTICAL COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT. THE NEW METHODS HAVE BEENSUCCESSFULLY TESTED FOR SPECIAL PURPOSE APPLICATIONS BUT REQUIRE ADDITIONAL RESEARCH TO RESOLVE TECHNICAL D DIFFICULTIES AND EXTEND RESULTS TO PROVIDE THE BASIS FOR A PRACTICAL, REAL TIME VEHICLE ROUTING AND SCHEDULING SYSTEM.